Chapter 42: Chapter 32: OldstonesChapter Text
"The Oldstones Canal was the oldest and smallest of the Great Canals of Rhaenyra, meant more for tourists than real shipping."
-Excerpt from a textbook published in 200 AC
110 AC, Skies above Riverlands,
My skycart was one of the few indulgences I'd allowed myself to splurge on. Two stories high and made of the finest materials, and heavy enough Vhagar and Silverwing working together were required to carry it, my skycart was more a flying house than a cart. The steel frame of the skycart was made from castle-forged steel, and welded together by Balefyre. The floors, roof and walls of the skycart were Ironwood, sourced from Beyond the Wall. The windows were panes of glass thicker than my fist, reinforced to withstand a crossbow bolt, with red wool curtains for privacy.
A clever series of air-holes allowed the skycart to be less stuffy, with a constant flow of air from the air holes at the bottom of the room to those near the ceiling. And when temperatures plummeted, a simple pull of a lever had them covered up, trapping the heat once more.
The first floor comprised of three rooms. The largest was a living/dining room, essentially six chairs surrounding a table nailed to the floor. There were a couple of sofas by the wall, allowing travellers to gaze out at the clouds while in flight. Attached to the interior walls, was cabinets filled with books, board games and a dozen other odds and ends for a lady's entertainment while she travelled. Oil lamps mounted onto the walls, the metal delicately worked to provide maximum light and warmth, saw to heat and light, while the white plaster on the walls made the black Ironwood drink far less light in. The floors were also laminated and polished smooth, such that they were comfortable to tread on, interspersed with the occasional Myrish carpet.
The door to the left allowed access into the kitchen, which had floor-to-ceiling cabinets filled with food from all across the Seven Kingdoms and oil stoves to cook them on. There were washbasins here as well, with a small cistern for water. One specially designed cabinet even allowed wind to flow through it mid-flight, allowing for the cooling of drinks by the rushing wind.
Meanwhile, the first door to the right led to a small bathroom/toilet, with Japanese style barrel bath on one side, filled and drained through a simple plumbing system, and a chamberpot and washbasin in the other. The second door to the right led to a ladder that allowed access to the second floor and the roof, which had mini-crenellations and railings.
The second floor was the bedrooms for my ladies and I. The one Laena and I shared was the largest, with a bed big enough for two, capable of being folded up on the wall to save space. My trunk doubled as a desk, being high enough that I could write comfortably on it, with overhead compartments filled with paper, stationery and books. I had a foldable chair to sit on while working, and oil lamps saw to lighting. The other four rooms had similar furnishings, but were smaller and meant only for one inhabitant.
Currently, including Laena and myself, there were eight inhabitants of my skycart. Rhaegar had his own room, as did Daenys, but Bell preferred pitching a tent on the roof and sleeping there. My bodyguards Ser Jessamyn and Ser Alys shared a room, hot-bunking with one sleeping while the other stood guard. And the last room was filled by my newest handmaiden: eight-year-old Viserra Fyre.
I was in my room, calling King's Landing via glass candle, when I felt a gentle shudder ripple through the skycart. We had landed. I finished speaking my pleasantries to Daena before hanging up, before looking out of the window at our destination.
———
110 AC, Oldstones,
Oldstones had grown into a sizeable town over the past four years. The forest had been cleared back, dirt footpaths created and an outlying fence raised to deter wolves or other wild animals. While it had once started out as a tent city, the labourers had worked and lived here for five years. Long enough that it was now a thing of wood, mud and stone. Houses had been raised, some out of stone, more out of fired mud bricks from the marshes and riverbanks, and even more out of the timber from the chopped trees.
There was some semblance of order in this settlement, avenues large enough for riders cleared, and houses clearly raised in neat rows, surrounding improvised marketplaces, wells, fire pits, taverns, brothels and a thousand and one other things people gathered around.
The castle had been partially repaired. Old stones were stolen from collapsed structures to repair those still standing. Some of the stone quarried for the canal had been repurposed as well. Leftovers and damaged bricks, placed into old walls and held together by surplus mortar. And when stone ran low, timber, clay, packed dirt and mudbricks had been used instead. Still, it was a far cry from any castle I had been to. Barely qualifying as a second-rate landed knight's keep.
As the third highest ranking person in the Seven Kingdoms, I'd been offered use of the castle, but I'd demurred. My skycart was far more comfortable and well-furnished anyway.
But more impressive than the town was the canal. A great straight line, carved into the land, stretching on for miles and miles. Paved with stones at the bottom and with walls of stone reinforced with internal steel girders. Wooden drawbridges stretched across the gap, allowing for both pedestrian and naval traffic to pass through unimpeded.
Building the canal took far less time than digging it. We'd prefabricated the walls and floor of the canal, stacking together stone bricks and mortar into large sections of walls even as men dug and dug. Primitive excavators and cranes, driven by oxen, were created based on designs from the Encyclopaedia of Valyrian Engineering, which throughly sped up the digging. And even then, we dug from both ends, and not just from the shoreline and river source. Thrice, they'd dug deep pits into the land, before digging from those as well.
There were no shortage of men committed into the effort, with men from as far north as the Twins and as far south as Harrenhal being brought for the excavation. Food from the Reach, ferried by the Ironborn, fed these men through the long and bitter winter. After the War of Four Directions, the entirety of Hun's giants and mammoths came down to lend their muscle, which significantly sped up progress. And once the digging was complete, building it took far less time, and was merely a matter of placing down the stone before cementing them together.
And now, today, on the cusp of spring, the work was complete.
I stepped onto the raised platform erected for me, with near the entire population of Oldstones gathered before me. Ser Alys raised a glass candle, a flick of my hand lighting it and connecting me to the other two glass candles at the other two great camps of labourers. One at the halfway point, called Canaltown, and the other at the coast, raised around the fishing village of Driftwood. When I spoke, I would address them all simultaneously.
"Gentlemen, do you all know what you have done over the past five years?" I asked, looking down at the assembled labourers, my voice amplified magically. "Work, some will say. A canal, other will say. But they are both wrong. What you gentlemen have all done over the past half a decade was no mere job, but the greatest project the Seven Kingdoms has seen since Harrenhal.
"Harrenhal made history, as the largest castle to ever be built. Forty years of work. Greater than any other building on Westeros apart from the Wall. The pride of the Ironborn. Till this day, even ruined as it is, it still remains the greatest construction of the Riverlands." I recounted. "And today, gentlemen, we have surpassed it.
"This great canal, upon which we stand, will bring prosperity and wealth to the Riverlands. By connecting the Blue Fork to the Sunset Sea, the bounties of the Reach and Westerlands will now flow through the Riverlands, enriching all whom live on the banks of these rivers." I spoke. "Gentlemen, Harrenhal may have be the greatest castle in Westeros, but today, you have built the first Great Canal of Westeros. One that will give you and your descendants, a thousand years of coin.
"This canal is greater than any mine, for it will never run dry. Greater than any forest, for it will never be depleted. Greater than any field, for fields do not make as much coin as trade does." I declared, watching as backs straightened with pride. "Rejoice, for this is a construction worthy of the Smith himself, and it is by your hands, and none others, that completed this great feat."
There was great cheers and applause at that, first from my shills in the audience, but spreading to every labourer in the crowd of all three camps. A sonorous roar that seemed to shake the world itself. Feet stomped, hands clapped and cheers were shouted as the labourers celebrated.
"And that is why, I , Prince Rhaenyra Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone and Heir to the Iron Throne, now declare the Great Canal of Oldstones, opened." I proclaimed, Laena swooping down on Vhagar and unleashing dragonfire on the dike corking the canal at Oldstones, destroying it and allowing the water of the Blue Fork to flow down the channel. But the main water source was the Sunset Sea, where Dreamfyre's flames destroyed the larger dam, allowing seawater to pour into the channel. For miles and miles the water flowed, until at Canaltown, the two massive streams met, crashing into each other with a great splash that drenched half the shanty town.
Celebrations lasted the entire night, with a great feast. Food, drink and whores were provided, all expenses paid by the crown. I'd sat down with the labourers, chatting with the men. It was the first time I'd drank alcohol in earnest since my reincarnation, and boy did I miss wine.
While I knew that the legal age of drinking in Singapore was eighteen, I'd flouted that rule ever since I won a rare bottle of vintage wine in a lucky draw at age thirteen. I'd shared it with my family then, being given a small glass to drink under the watchful eye of my mother. I still had the empty bottle as a memento. And ever since I had that sweet red wine, I'd been hooked, drinking more as I grew older. Though I only really began drinking in earnest when I turned legal.
That was when I found out that I preferred wines over all other liquors, and specifically wines the colour of gold. Like the glass of Arbor gold I'd been drinking. Man, this was good stuff.
———
I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. God did I hate hangovers. It felt like a band of metal was encircling my head and squeezing. I staggered to my feet, nauseated. My stomach was burning. What did I eat last night that I felt so horrid?
And my legs were wet and sticky.
Fuck, did I wet the bed? That was beyond embarrassing. I hadn't done that since I was six, and not since I was two in this life.
I threw open my curtains, allowing sunlight to stream into the room, and I saw that it wasn't pee that was on the bed. It was blood.
I'd just had my first menstruation.
I was now a maid flowered, ready to be married off.